Hard as it is to believe there are quite a number of LPs that have never made it to CD and have been out of print (oop) for years. Linn Tate reminded me of this when he mentioned Herb Wong's Blackhawk Label and titles that haven't made it to CD.

I keep a running list of titles and I'll write about some I long for. Might as well start at the beginning.

There are two Toshiko Akiyoshi's LPs that I haven't come across on CD. There was an LP called "Dedications" on the long defunct Inner City label that my notes say was released in 1977. I don't have any other info re. the LP.

The other Akiyoshi title on my "out of print want to buy list" is Monopoly Game that my notes say was released on BMG, which is the old RCA label. I know she had a deal with RCA Japan, only some of the titles making it on RCA in the United States. I don't know anything else about the LP.

K-Bee is going to just love this topic, CfA. I know I already do, though it's going to be a bit frustrating thinking about all of the great music we're missing.

quote:

Originally posted by ChrisFromAstoria:
the long defunct Inner City label

Oh, yeah. Inner City alone could keep us busy for months and months. I cleaned up on Inner City vinyl back in the 80s when the label closed up shop and the cut-out bins were filled with their stuff. Their reissue of Live at Montreux was one of my earliest introductions to Sun Ra. Unfortunately, most of that hasn't survived moving my collection multiple times, so I'd be awfully happy to see somebody reissue their core catalog.

Definitely Black Hawk, though maybe that's cheating a bit since some of their titles did make it CD. Specifically, it would be nice to be see The Leaders' album Mudfoot featuring a killer line-up of Arthur Blythe, Lester Bowie, Chico Freeman, Kirk Lightsey, Cecil McBee, and Don Moye as well as a fun Freeman vocal on Sam Cooke's "Cupid."

In another thread, I've bemoaned the fact that most of Arthur Blythe's Columbia catalog languishes in the vaults.

I have one very big request in mind, but I'd best let somebody else have a turn while this post is still under 1,000 words (or albums).

Now Playing: "Play It Cool" Hot Pink Karma The Future Is Vintage

There are several long deleted albums I'd like to see on CD but they're most within the soul/funk genre.
In general, I think the labels have done a pretty good job on releasing older jazz albums on cd.
I still buy and play vinyl records so I don't really miss much to be honest

Speaking of Blackhawk, Herb Wong was involved with another long defunct label, Palo Alto. Very few Palo Alto titles have popped up on CD. I know Blue Note licensed some material Dianne Reeves recorded for Palo Alto, but the compilation CD BN released didn't include all the cuts from her Palo Alto output. And there was a company reissuing Palo Alto titles, but I haven't seen any releases in a while. One Palo Alto title I'd love to see reissued is one of the many Richie Cole LPs Richie Cole recorded for the label. I forget the exact name of the LP, but there is reportedly a killer version of Duke Pearson's "Jeannine" on it. That is my all-time favorite jazz tune.

Arthur Blythe did have a nice run on Columbia. His Columbia work would make a nice Mosaic box.

Meanwhile, a couple more title. From pianist Joe Albany:

Portrait of an Artist (Elektra/Musicians)
Proto Bopper (Revelation ’72)

Albany was one of the many bebop musicians whose career, life really, was derailed by off-the-bandstand problems (i.e., drugs). Elektra/Musician is yet another one of those labels that didn't make the transition from vinyl to CD. Only a relative handful of titles have been reissued. The label, now part of the Time-Warner empire, was started and run by Bruce Lundvall, who was between jobs at the time. He left Columbia Records, started Elektra-Musician, and then moved on to EMI/Blue Note. Who knows if and when EM titles will be released?

The other label Revelation I know nothing about. I don't even know what I added it to my "out of print/want to buy list." I suspect it was listed in the "Rolling Stone Guide to Recorded Jazz," the book that was my bible when I started buying jazz LPs then CDs.

A couple of titles by "Jug" aka Gene Ammmons, a big Chicago tenor player.

"Dig ‘Em"is on the Chicago-based and long defunct Argo label now owned by the same people that own the Verve, Decca & Impulse catalogues. Argo is a label that has had a number of aborted reissue programs over the years, but has been treated quite shabbily in the CD era. Hard to believe this one never made it to CD since Jug is paired with Sonny Stitt.

"Together Again For Last Time" w/ Sonny Stitt (Prestige/’73) (Mickey Roker/Junior Mance/Sam Jones).

I find it hard to believe that this title still sits in the vaults of the folks at Concord, who just bought the Fantasy/OJC operation. Again, Sonny Stitt paired with Jug backed by Roker, Mance and Jones. I have to check and see if this one came out. Hard to believe it never made it to CD.

Curtis Amy:


Sounds of Broadway, Sounds of Hollywood (Palomar). Amy is a west coast sax player who I don't know all that much about. I don't know anything about the Palomar label and heard about the disc by reading the liner notes of a disc reissued on the Fresh Sound label.


Mustang (Verve/’66) Again, I learned about this release from reading the liner notes of the Fresh Sound disc. I am surprised that Verve hasn't gotten around to releasing this one on CD, particularly because of the presence of sidemen Kenny Barron and Jimmy Owens, who, if memory serves me correctly, recorded their debut disc on Atlantic around this same time.

I am surprised the Fantasy/OJC folks never got around to releasing pianist Chris Anderson's "Inverted Image" on the Jazzland label from '61. Jazzland, I believe, was a subsidiary of the legendary Riverside label that is now part of the Fantasy/OJC catalog.

Anderson is one of those quintessential musician's musicians who is best known because he was one of Herbie Hancock's piano teachers. When Anderson gigs in NYC -- an all too rare occurrence -- the venue is usually packed with fellow members of the jazz piano fraternity.

Palo Alto, I've not thought about that label or Richie Cole for a long, long time. Both were favorites of mine one upon a time and I'd be awfully happy to see them back.

Your idea of a Blythe Mosaic box is great, CfA. That would be perfect, though I wonder how you handle his one overwhelming dud in the catalog, Put Sunshing in It. Oh, and speaking of all time favorite jazz tunes, I'm always happy to hear somebody cover the spiritual "Just A Closer Walk with Thee" and Blythe's was killer from that period.

Elektra/Musician was great. I remember buying Charlie Parker One Night in Washington when it came out. Ultimately it's not the greatest live recording, but the packaging was great. I loved the quotes printed on the inner sleeve (if memory serves). It was the first place I ever saw the Charles Ives quote I cited elsewhere recently.

Revelation? Never, ever heard of it.

I used to have a great "essentials" list my saxophone teacher put together for me around '81. I wish I knew what had ever happened to it. It was a huge influence on my formative years of listening.

I can say in all confidence that I have never owned a Chris Anderson album. Thanks for the tip! Of course, if nobody gets around to reissuing anything, the point may be moot, eh?

So many cool suggestions here, I have a few more of my own, but I think I'll save them for another post.

Now Playing: The Daily Source Code

Roy Ayers: West Coast Jazz (United Artists '63)

Ayers is best known for his playing in the fusion/smooth jazz vein, but once, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away he made a straight-ahead jazz LP that as far as I know hasn't seen the light of day on CD. Jack Wilson & Curtis Amy play on the LP. The LP is part of the EMI/Blue Note holdings and chances of this seeing the light of day are slim indeed.

As far as I know Verve has never released Count Basie's "16 Men Swinging" on CD. It may have come out on one of those Mosaic boxes, but this is supposedly one of the Basic band's better discs and I'm still waiting for it.

Walter Bishop Jr.:
Valley Land (Muse)
Soul Village (Muse)
Cubicle (Muse) (w/ keyboards)
Hot House (Muse)

Walter Bishop was a be-bop oriented piano and the work he recorded for Muse, in the 1970s, never made it to CD. Joe Fields owned and ran Muse until around 1996 when he sold the entire catalog. He continued to issue new CDs on Muse and its sister label Landmark until the labels' demise, but reissued very few catalog titles.

A company called 32Jazz, which was run by former Atlantic staff producer and Philly DJ Joel Dorn, bought the catalog and 32jazz did reissue many Muse titles, many in newly packaged CD that contained compilations of Muse LPs or combining two Muse LPs onto one CD. 32Jazz had much success with "theme compilations" like "Jazz for a Golf Outing" & "Jazz for a Rainy Day," some of which sold quite well, but the label ended up out of business.

Camden, a British outfit, reissued several Muse titles by artists like Red Rodney & Sonny Stitt, but that didn't last long and didn't include many titles.

Then I think Atlantic or Savoy had a the catalog for awhile and briefly reissued some Muse titles, but that kind of petered out.

I don't know who owns the Muse titles.

Arthur Blythe:
In the Tradition (CBS/’79)
Basic Blythe (CBS/’78)
Blythe Spirit (CBS)
Pa-Pa w/ John Hicks (CBS)
Elaborations (w/ John Hicks (CBS)

Arthur Blythe had a nice run on CBS (now CBS/Sony) in the late 1970s/early 1980s before he was unceremoniously dumped by the label. Most of Blythe's work has yet to see the light of day on CD. "In the Tradition," Hicks' most straight-ahead, in-the-pocket side for the label is the one I'm most chomping at the bit for.

Art Blakey: Golden Boy (Colpix 478) (’64)

Hard to believe there is an Art Blakey title that hasn't made it to the compact disc format, but the EMI/Blue Note conglomerate is sitting on this one (it owns the long defunct Colpix label). I don't know much about the LP, other than the fact that I think it is the soundtrack to either the play or the film.

Joanne Brackeen:
Ancient Dynasty (Tappan Zee/Columbia)
Keyed In (Tappan Zee/Columbia)
Tring-a-Ling (Choice/’77)

I haven't heard much from Joanne Brackeen in recent years, but pianist Bob James at one point had an imprint distributed and/or owned by Columbia Records and James recorded Brackeen twice back in the 1970s I believe. Neither "Acient Dynasty" nor "Keyed in Tappan" ever saw the light of day on CD.

I don't know much about the Choice title, other than the fact that it was released in 1977 on vinyl and as far as I know never popped up in the CD format.

Roy Brooks: Beat w/ Blue Mitchell & Junior Cook (Motown Jazz Workshop)

Someone recommended this long out-of-print LP as something I would like since I'm a big fan of hardbop. The Motown record label took a couple of stabs at starting jazz labels and this one is from its short-lived stint n the early 1960s.

Clifford Brown: Pure Genius w/ Max Roach (Elektra/Musicians)

As far as I know this hasn't made it to compact disc. As mentioned earlier, Elektra/Musicians is a label that hasn't made the transition to the CD era all that well. A label with an interesting history, it was set up and run by Bruce Lundvall between his stints at CBS and Blue Note, a post he continues to hold. As far as I know, E/M is a label that is owned by the Time-Warner empire.

What more can one say about Clifford Brown? Assuming the sound quality is good, this one must be a keeper.

On the subject of defunct jazz labels like Elektra Musician...whatever happened to the GramaVision label? I wonder when it folded. They used to have a roster of well-known artists on that label including John Scofield, Al Macdowell amd Jamaaladeen Tacuma, but I don't have any releases after 1991 from GramaVision.

quote:

Originally posted by K-Bee:
On the subject of defunct jazz labels like Elektra Musician...whatever happened to the GramaVision label? I wonder when it folded. They used to have a roster of well-known artists on that label including John Scofield, Al Macdowell amd Jamaaladeen Tacuma, but I don't have any releases after 1991 from GramaVision.

I can't shed any light on this one. I may have heard of GramaVision, but don't know much, if anything, about it. In fact of those three musicians you mentioned the only one I'm familiar with is Scofield.

Meanwhile, one of my out of print wants is now out on CD. Mighty Quinn Records must have worked out a licensing agreement with the EMI/Blue Note folks to mine the catalog, because they just released Roy Ayers' "West Coast Jazz" on Pacific Jazz (owned by EMI/Blue Note.)

Ray Bryant: Take a Bryant Step (Cadet)

Cadet, part of the conglomerate that owns the Verve catalog, is a label that has been badly served in the CD era. Lots of fits and starts of issuing titles on this Chess subsidiary (which was also called Argo). There were some Japanese reissues of Ray Bryant's Argo/Cadet titles, but for whatever reason they never got around to reissuing "Take a Bryant Step."

Rusty Bryant:
RB Plays Jazz (Dot ’58)
America’s Greatest Jazz (Dot ’56)

I don't know much about Bryant, but he was signed by Prestige in the late 1960s when the label was in the full throes of its organ/soul jazz craze. I think he was based in Ohio and the signing by Prestige kind of brought Bryant wider attention. These discs are from an earlier phase of his career, but other than that I don't know much about the LPs nor of the label. I probably learned about them reading the liner notes to one of the Prestige titles, at least some of which have been reissued on CD.

Jazz flutist Sam Most recoded some really great albums on the Zanadu label. I don't think any of them ever made it to CD. If they have, I've never found them. I have acutally converted them to CD and listen often. My favorite is "From the Attic Of My Mind". The album includes Kenny Barron on piano, George Mraz on base, Warren Smith on precussion, and Walter Bolden on drums. My favorite cut is "One Forgotten Yeaterday" - a duet with Barron.